GDR2 update for Verizon's Lumia 928 available on Nokia servers; ready for flashing

Nokia and Microsoft are slowly (but surely) looking to roll the GDR2 + Amber update out to consumers with a Lumia Windows Phone. Those with a Lumia 928 and who are anxious to get the update will be able to get dirty by manually applying it to their device. Windows Phone Central member tungha has published some links on the forum that contain files for the Nokia Amber update.

Fancy some flashing? You can now update your Lumia 928 manually, should you know what you're doing of course.

Just like the update published for the Lumia 920 and Lumia 820, the files can be downloaded and flashed directly to the Lumia 928. This brings its own problems since this will mean the device will be wiped and all data lost. This is why we'd never recommend anyone to go down this route, unless you truly know what you're messing with and aren't bothered about losing saved games and app settings.

Nokia’s bundled Amber update, which is what is causing the delays for release, allows the new Glance screen, flip to silence, Lumia Color Profile and an improved camera experience, making the combo of an update quite interesting for consumers.

If you're not prepared to go down the manual update route, fear not as mobile operators are expected to roll out this rather important update this month. Head on over to our community forum for more details, some instructions on flashing through Nokia's Care Suite and the general discussion. Screenshots via Imgur, thanks to Trevor for the tip!

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Its fun to go back and read old submittals and read about how something is going to (or not going to) happen, knowing the actual outcome. Its nice to know that the 822 did get the updates, even quicker than expected. And knowing that the 822 has sold so well in the US, I suspect that may have had something to do with it. A sort of 'strength in numbers' sort of thing. For whatever reason, I am loving the updates with the added features.

As for the 928, my co-worker just got his and it did not come with the Amber Update and also did not show up after a check for updates. Interesting.

Did a manual OTA update yesterday on my 928. Very disappointed the FM-radio appears to not have made the trek. That was one of the updates I was looking forward to. The new Nokia camera apps and the glance screen are nice to have though.

For some releif with your other storage.... make sure all your pics and vids are synced to SkyDrive and delete them from the phone. I had about 6GB of pics and vids that I took and that equated to about 4.5GB of other. Once I deleted them my other storage was down to 1.3GB. Then if you are nervous about losing app data and settings you can hold out for the OTA.

I think Microsoft that shows slowing give update, why don't give GDR update on August 10, 2013 for all Windows Phone 8 including 520, 620, 720, 820, 920 and all countries will be available on August 10, 2013. And customers wait till that date, it is true, not delay again?

I read too, the Bluetooth version will be v4.0. Why don't try to give more important features like Office can read documents from SD card, attach multiple files, attach can be done via email for documents (not from Office where the documents should be in phone memory first)? That's more important than Bluetooth v4.0.

Is there something wromg? If you read news from www.gsmarena.com, you will read that they give Amber update for high end Lumia first (820 and 920). What I meant here, why didn't they release Amber update for all Windows Phone 8 devices previously, say on August 1, August 5, etc. If Lumia 920 users got Amber update from their device, Lumia 520, 620 and 720 got Amber update too in the same date and for all countries.

If I do it manually and have the ability to remove the forced VZW software that ruins my 928 I don't care if I lose data. I'd pay Nokia directly to give me a clean ROM. Anyone done this yet? Can you confirm if the Backup assistant crapware is still forcibly installed?

The problem is that WP is not supposed to have carrier locked info. The iPhone certainly doesn't. All of the poorly written apps that Verizon has for iPhone can be uninstalled on a whim. It used to be that way for WP7 with the Trophy, which i loved and supported Group SMS forever ago. But Verizon has to stick their hands in places they don't need them to be. Make it an app in the marketplace and allow users to download it. Don't force load that garbage and then make it not removeable. This isn't android, this is a computer based OS and just like Sony got yelled at for trying to make users apy to remove their bloat from the computers running windows, Verizon should not have been able to bully MS and the OEMs to force their BS on the phone.

Backup assist caused my wife's data to stop working completely. I have been a WM 2003 forward user and abuser since 2005 on phones and hacked the hell out of my Trophy countless times over just for fun. But for the life of me I couldn't fix it. I tried access the DIAG wiht ##778# to manually input the settings but vzw locks that down, too. So the only way to fix it was a factory reset, which, like other users have mention, causes you to lose apps that you had downloaded, and in some case paid for, that are no longer in the market.

All it does is hurt the brand and destroy the backend of the OS, garbage coded incorrectly with access to root file systems is a bad idea and we as users shouldn't have to tolerate this kind of big brother abuse. If I wanted to have a weak OS, with 10000000 malware threats and boat loads of my internal memory taken up with force loaded, non-uninstallable and pointless apps I would buy whatever garbage android phone is on the market these days with VZW branding all over it.

I purchased a Windows Phone for stability, use, reliability, Microsoft services, and less crap in the market, et a la iOS appstore and Android.

Updated my L820 three days ago via flash with a German unbranded rom and then a French unbranded rom just to see if there was a difference but didn't notice any but "other storage" on my phone halved and glance is working perfectly although I did have to re-download the last touch and display update to get the peek setting to activate. My L820 is running so smooooooth now with a class 10 sdhc card.

I'll wait with you, but I'm not holding my breath. There is no incentive for either Nokia or Tmobile (dunno your carrier) to care about us anymore. Easier to just screw us over then pretend they can't hear us.

GODD@%$!T Rich! You had to set my friend's hopes up high only to knock them down! He read the article and thought the update was available from Verizon. Luckily we read the article and he's bawling like Pil-Z from a Foamy episode.

In general for AT&T when the update shows up on the Nokia servers we get the OTA in a few days. So this is a valid article showing that the release is very close and the update is complete. I check to see if the 920 update is on the servers everyday.

I contacted O2 in uk about my Lumia 820, there response was "We're working on the PR 1.17 update for the Lumia 820 which will bring improvements to it's 4G performance &amp; stability." no timescale was given at all excellent.

Considering ATT hasn't pushed it yet, and Nokia's Amber is what's causing the holdup, I wouldn't start yelling at Verizon yet. I got tired of waiting so I flashed my 920 last night, worked like a charm.

No, we dont really have it. Now i've noticed inconsistent results, though. Somes times it does group them, sometimes not.
I actaully think the inconsistency depends on the grou memebers' phones and carriers....

The reason you had them is because you had the option set on your 920, and it got saved on your settings backup. When you restored your settings from the backup on your 920, the group messaging option was still enabled.

Understood. I should mention, I too had an experience similar to yours. My girl sent out a group message using her iPhone, and whenever one of the recipients replied I would received the message as well. So your claim is valid in respect to group messages created by iPhones.

You must've booted up a backup. It didn't work for me initially (L928 VZW) but after resetting and loading up my L810-T-Mo backup, I was able to successfully do so. The Group messaging option still doesn't show up in Text Message settings though.

On my hd7 and 925, group messaging works with iPhone friends but not android friends. Android messages come through as unique messages instead of through the original thread. I have a feeling this is googles doing.

The default messaging app in Android does not support Group MMS so unless they are using a phone that has replaced the default app or they have replaced the default app their messages will split out of the group.

This should NOT matter. If the person is in the group that you sent to, the phone recognizes it as a REPLY from the original group and places it accordingly. It should have nothing to do with the other end unless THEY started the message.
The 928 user manual (downloaded from Verizon) states group messages can be sent, but does not say that they will be returned inside a common message. It states groups need to be created first in the People Hub.
"If you have contact groups such as family or colleagues, you can send messages to a group."
"Send a message to a group of people. Need to send a message to a group of people? Create a group in the People hub, and you can reach them all with a single message or email. On the start screen, tap People. Tap the group and text or send email, and write and send your message. For more information on how to create a group, see “Add a new contact group” on page 28."

Incorrect. Group messaging is handled by mms so if the other phone does not support it it will only send back an SMS which is not properly grouped. Other replies to the group will also show up funny on the non supporting phone.

Actually it was an issue with Windows Phone 8. Maybe an overseight when they built the OS. WP8 Does not support CDMA group messaging until GDR2. I don't know why it took so long, nor can I tell you how I know that. ;-)

Updated my L820 three days ago via flash with a German unbranded rom and then a French unbranded rom just to see if there was a difference but didn't notice any but "other storage" on my phone halved and glance is working perfectly although I did have to re-download the last touch and display update to get the peek setting to activate. My L820 is running so smooooooth now with a class 10 sdhc card.

I agree. I did a hard reset on my 920 twice and both times it 'bricked' but I managed to recover by flashing after following the instructions posted in the forum. This past time I just flashed without doing a hard reset first and it worked fine. So I'm thinking the best 'fix' for the bug is to simply reflash instead of performing a hard reset on the phone. OTA updates, if available, seem to work fine as well.
I'd like to flash GDR2 but want to wait for the AT&T version or at least an unbrand RM-820 version as I have some concerns about using RM-821.

Wouldn't that be convenient.
8/20 is a date I've head for over a month as being the big rollout for GDR2 everywhere, but who knows if that means when Nokia releases it to all carriers, carriers start releasing it... or if it's just hog wash.